1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates generally to conducting market research an surveys in real-time over the Internet, and more particularly to creating a sample pool for a web-based survey.
2. Description of the Prior Art
One problem faced by those involved in conducting surveys is the identification and creation of a survey sample pool composed of individuals willing to respond to the survey. Visitors to Internet websites provide a rich pool of potential survey respondents and are particularly appropriate for Internet-based surveys. Internet users of every imaginable description routinely navigate from website to website providing a diverse potential sample pool for survey projects.
One commonly used technique for the solicitation of website visitors is to “intercept” visitors by displaying a pop-up window in a visited website. For the purpose of soliciting survey respondents, the pop-up window generally contains an invitation to take a survey and a hyperlink to an intercepting website providing the survey. While this technique is useful in diverting users from the visited website to the intercepting website, the technique requires that the webmaster of the visited website insert HTML and/or Javascript code into the code of the visited website to generate the pop-up window. The inserted code must when be changed or deleted as survey projects are initiated, modified and finalized.
The conventional technique further requires that actions such as initiating a flow of survey respondents from the visited website to the intercepting site, changing the sampling rate at which respondents are solicited, and terminating the flow of survey respondents once a survey quota is met, be carried out through the intervention of the webmaster of the visited website. As a number of visited websites are typically utilized for the purpose of creating a survey sample pool, these actions are necessarily resource-intensive and demanding of both the entity administering the survey and the administrators of the visited websites.
The conventional technique solicits the participation of every visitor to the visited website, making no distinction between those visitors who have already taken the survey, those that have not taken the survey, and those who have declined to take the survey. This feature unnecessarily reduces the appeal of the visited website to its users.
The disclosed system and method overcome these limitations of the prior art by providing a system and method that minimizes the effort required of a webmaster of a visited website participating in the generation of a survey sample pool. The system and method further provide all of the functionality necessary to enable an entity conducting a survey to control survey parameters. Additionally, the system and method provide for screening and selection of potential members of the survey sample pool based on user profiles.